


On the list

by down



Category: Magic Knight Rayearth
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, fluff!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 04:08:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12832968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/down/pseuds/down
Summary: Satoru is useless at doing the shopping, in 930 words.(For Hikaru week on tumblr in 2015)





	On the list

oOo

Meals in the Shindou household were a group effort. Everyone did a bit of everything, through the month; shopping, cooking, washing up – but things were arranged so that they all did more of what they were better at. Masaru was excellent at things which involved skill with a frying pan – tamagoyaki, omuraisu, things like that. Kakeru made particularly nice noodle dishes. And Hikaru was gifted at finding the very last box or packet of whichever ingredient she needed – and no one else ever got angry with her for having got there first.

Satoru was good at planning – and feeding a household which did so much sport (because they all belonged to at least one club as well as their time in the dojo) and contained one rather large dog while staying within their food budget was a complicated process. It meant watching all the sale sheets and dispatching people to the right shop at the right time on the right day. Their mother looked after the rest of the budget, and most of the organisation of the dojo but she’d handed that one over into his care a while back. They weren’t badly off – but keeping up the dojo and the whole complex of house and gardens took a fair amount of doing, as did keeping three teenage boys in clothing and paying those club fees.

So the planning of their food for the week was down to Satoru, and then it got worked into the chores board in the kitchen along with the cleaning and laundry and everything else. This week Hikaru was down to do the shopping on Tuesday, and they needed more staples like rice and juice so she’d asked Kakeru to come along before baseball practice and help carry things. Only when she got home, Kakeru was nowhere to be seen, and Satoru was gathering up the shopping bags.

“I know Kakeru was meant to come with you, but his basketball team just heard who they’re playing next, and he had to go to a strategy planning meeting.” Satoru said, with a smile. “…Do you have the list?”

“And the money.” Hikaru nodded, checking the chores board behind him quickly – but, no, Masaru was out this afternoon, as he was down to do the washing up and tidy the dojo last thing tonight. “But, ah, I’m sure I’ll be fine on my own!”

“No, no, we need too much for one to carry, and I’ve nothing to do which can’t wait.”

Hikaru mentally started rewriting her plan of attack for the stores as she picked up her bag and the list from on top of it. Because Satoru was brilliant at planning the shopping… less so at doing it.

Still, it was nice to get some time to chat with him, so they walked happily enough to the first store, where there was a sale on in the fish section. She sent him down the rice aisle to pick up what they needed, and took a basket into the mob about the fish counter. But by the time she reemerged, Satoru had managed to get distracted by the tea section – two aisles away from the rice.

“We don’t need any more tea this week.”

“Are you sure? There’s a new ginger tea here-“ Satoru held up a box, and Hikaru smiled, took it from him, and put it back on the shelf.

“I’m sure. You always put it on the list, and it isn’t here – besides, didn’t Masaru buy more ginger tea last week?”

“Ah, yes. Oh – wait, don’t we need dog food here?”

And he was off again, in the other direction, remembering everything he put on all their lists rather than just todays food. Hikaru giggled, and chased him out of that aisle too. “Hikari has plenty to last until Sunday, I checked this morning. Would you carry this bag of rice, please?”

“Of course.” Satoru hefted the sack she pointed out with ease, and she herded him on through the rest of it. She kept the list carefully away from him, as well – he had a skill for losing them as soon as he left the house.

They walked on to another shop to get orange juice on sale, and then went past a bakery for bread and one of the specialist little tofu shops to get the kind their Mother liked best, and it took nearly an hour longer than Hikaru had planned, but she was still laughing at the end of it; all of Satoru’s deviations were because he worried that they would miss something they needed and one of his family would have to go without something.

It was the same reason his plans were always so well worked out- he just couldn’t keep track of them when they got off paper - last time they let him out alone, he managed to bring home more umeboshi than they could eat in a year. And while they went, she listened to the difficulty he was having with a new student who had come to them after moving from Hokkaido, and helped him come up with some ways to help them settle in and keep the change in style from their old dojo from stopping them coming back. She also mentioned the week’s holiday she wanted to take with Umi and Fuu – and Satoru started planning with her how they were going to tell Kakeru and Masaru without either of them fretting over her being away for so many nights.

Plus, they got ice cream for after dinner, because not all of Satoru’s distracted thoughts were bad ones.

(And Kakeru apologised for his absence by doing her share of the washing up that evening.) 

oOo


End file.
